Читать книгу Regency Society Collection Part 1 - Sarah Mallory - Страница 65

Constance was waiting in her sitting room until it was late enough to go to bed. Her life was falling into a familiar pattern, now that Tony was part of it. She would nap in the afternoon, and have dinner, alone. She then sent the servants to bed early and spent the rest of the evening reading before the fire until almost midnight. Then she would find her own way to her room.

Shortly afterwards, her lover would come, and they would pass the hours until dawn.

Tonight, she had chosen Byron to keep her company until bedtime. She smiled and closed her eyes. When she had asked Tony to read to her, he had looked into her eyes and recited the poems from memory.

If she was not careful, she would become quite spoiled by his attentions. When the time came to return to reality, she would remember that Tony’s behaviour was an aberration of character, and a sign of the minimal depth of their relationship. Men might spout poetry to their mistresses, but never to their wives.

But it was lovely, all the same. ‘So lovely,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, you are.’ When she opened her eyes, Jack Barton was standing in the doorway.

She stood up and backed away, until she felt her shoulders bump the wall behind her. ‘How did you get into my home?’

He smiled at her, as always. ‘You gave me your key.’

‘Only because you forced me to. And Tony got it back for me.’

‘Tony.’ Barton sniffed in dismissal. ‘He is not much of a thief if he does not realise that keys can be copied. I let him take the one, and kept the duplicate, assuming rightly that I might need it later.’

‘Get out. I shall ring for the servants.’

‘I would not advise that.’ Barton pulled a pistol from his pocket, and pointed it in her direction.

‘Go ahead and shoot. You would not dare,’ she said and started for the bell pull.

‘Not you,’ he replied. ‘But I will shoot the first one through the door, if you ring for help. If you remember my last visit, you know I am capable of it.’

Her hand faltered before it reached the pull.

Barton nodded. ‘Very good. You must agree, it is better if we remain alone. And since you have dismissed the staff for the evening, they will not disturb us.’

‘But we will not be alone for long,’ she threatened. ‘I am expecting a guest.’

‘Anthony Smythe?’ Barton shook his head in disappointment. ‘I doubt he will be troubling us again. It was very simple, in the end, to beat your lover. It is a pity that I could not be there to see him fail. But I needed to be away from the house, to lure him in.’

‘What do you mean?’ Constance felt a chill.

‘The minute I was away, I have no doubt that he rushed into the house, ready to search the study. If he made it past the traps I set for him without falling to his death, he is still in for a nasty shock. The safe he has been trying to open for the last several weeks is, to the best of my knowledge, empty. I have never had reason or ability to open it. It was left by the previous owner of the house. For all I know, the man took the key to the grave with him. If he has not found them already, I doubt that your Mr Smythe will have sense to intuit the location of the things he is looking for.

‘I fear, darling, that in his initial excitement, he may have forgotten all about you.’

Constance tried not to imagine Tony, dangling unsteadily from a ledge or lying in a broken heap at the base of Barton’s house. He had made it into the house. She must believe that he had survived, if she meant to keep her wits about her. ‘I doubt he is so easy to beat as all that. He will come to my aid when he realises that you have tricked him.’

‘But if your vulnerability occurs to him later, he will come rushing back here, breakneck, to rescue you. He enters your room through the window, does he not?’

She stared at him, keeping her expression a blank.

‘Oh, come now. There are no secrets left between us. I have seen the ivy that leads right to your room. I doubt an agile climber could resist such an easy path. Now, where was I?

‘I have left him my plans for the evening. When he realises that I mean to have you while he is chasing after nothing, he will come rushing back to this house, to the bedroom, where he expects to find us. I will be waiting…’ he gestured with the pistol in his hand ‘…to rescue you from the intruder, bent on entering your room. One shot, as he is framed in the window. He will die from the bullet, or the fall, or a combination of the two.’

‘It will be murder. And I will tell anyone who will listen.’

‘I doubt anyone will, Constance. And even if they do, you might think before you speak. We will be in your room, together. There will be no question as to why I am there. It would be better, for you, should the world think that Smythe was attempting to rob you. If it appears you were entertaining two gentlemen, you will be the talk of the town.’

The book of poems slipped from her hands and dropped to the floor.

‘And you will want me to be free of prosecution. You will need my protection for quite some time, I think. If I am in jail for murder, or worse, you will gain nothing by it but revenge. Your reputation will be in tatters. You will not see another penny out of your idiot nephew, for he will cut you from the family for the disgrace.

‘On the other hand, if I am free, I will take care of you, just as I have always promised. We may have to leave the country, at least for a time. My business is not going quite so well as I’d hoped. But we will have the comfort of each other.’

Constance felt something snap, deep inside her. This was not how her life was to end. She was not some pawn to be passed from man to man and abandoned as they chose. She could not very well sit waiting for a rescue that might never come. Suppose Tony was dead, as Barton hoped. Or worse yet, on his way to her window so that she could watch him shot before her eyes and disgraced as a burglar.

She would not let it happen. If anyone was to be shot tonight, it would not be Tony.

Barton gestured with the gun.

‘We will go to your room, and wait.’

‘I suppose I have no choice,’ she said.

‘We have been over this before, Constance.’

‘If I submit willingly to you, will you spare Anthony Smythe?’

Barton laughed. ‘That offer is no longer available to you. What transpires now is a matter between gentlemen. You need not concern yourself with it.’

‘It is not the act of a gentleman to shoot an unsuspecting man.’

He smiled. ‘It is plain, Constance, that you are trying to prolong the inevitable. You have no need to be nervous, you know. I have every intention of being a gentle and courteous lover. Fine things should be savoured, not devoured.’

There he went again, referring to her as a thing. Not for very much longer, she hoped. Any minute, Tony would be here to put a stop to it.

Or he would not, and she would have to act for herself.

Barton reached across the table to stroke her hand. ‘And you are fine indeed. Your skin is soft, your eyes are bright…’

Her teeth were good, and her coat glossy. Soon he would be extolling her good wind and her ability to take jumps at the gallop. Tony never wasted half so much time on pretty words. And yet she had no doubt that he found her beautiful. She felt the anger in her, rising to push out the fear.

‘I will take great pleasure in loving you…’

And what was she to take from the experience? At least Tony did not blather on about how much he would enjoy being with her, although he clearly did. He seemed most concerned with how she felt about it. This man was obsessed with bedding her, nearly insane with it.

‘Come, let me show you.’ He rose and offered her his hand, and gestured towards the door with his gun.

She looked at the hand held out to her. Tony might be dead already. And if that was true, there would be no last-minute rescue. But if he was dead, then it did not matter, one way or the other, what happened to her. She no longer cared, so there was nothing to be afraid of.

She looked at Barton. He had seemed so frightening, but he was a pathetic creature who could think no further than the bed in her room. She knew his weakness, and she could exploit it to her advantage.

‘Very well.’ She took his hand and he escorted her towards the stairs, a pace behind, with the gun in his pocket. She turned as they were halfway up. ‘And you intend to be gentle?’

‘Of course.’

She allowed a small disappointed sigh to escape her lips.

Behind her, on the steps, she heard the slight hesitation in his step.

She paused again. ‘Robert was always very careful, when we were together. I assumed that it was the fault of age. Tony, as well, treated me as though I were made of glass.’ She turned to look back at Barton. ‘Some day, perhaps I will find someone who is not afraid to give me what I want.’ She glanced back at him and saw the avaricious glimmer in his eyes.

‘You do not wish me to be gentle?’

‘Let me be plain, Jack. You are a cold-blooded brute and I detest you. But perhaps I have had my fill of gentleman lovers. You mean to have me and I cannot stop you. But if you must, then do not bore me with talk of gentleness.’ She turned back to him on the stairs and kissed him, biting his lip.

She heard the intake of breath as she released him and watched his eyes go dark. He hurried the last few steps to draw even with her, pushing her back against the wall to kiss her hard in return.

She moaned convincingly back at him, tangling her hand in his hair and running a hand down his spine.

He pulled away again, smiling at her in surprise. And then his gaze turned suspicious. ‘If this is a trick, I will make you pay for it.’ But she could see in his eyes that he wanted to believe her.

‘You mean to make me pay, no matter what, Jack. There is nothing left to threaten me with.’ She walked the last few steps to her room, stepped inside and closed the door behind them.

He was on her as soon as the door was shut, shoving her against the wall, his fist in her hair and his mouth on hers. She felt his hands gripping her shoulders and fumbling at the front of her gown for her breasts.

Neither hand held the gun.

She made as if to hold him about the waist, then plunged her hand into his pocket to seize the pistol and point it into his ribs.

It took a moment for him to recognise the feel of the metal barrel in his stomach, and stop molesting her. ‘Constance!’

‘Step away from me, Jack. And do not make any sudden movements. I do not know much of guns, but I seriously doubt that I will miss you, should I shoot.’

‘Yes, Jack. Do step away from her. For if she does not want to shoot you, I most assuredly do.’

Tony’s voice startled her so much that she almost dropped the gun.

Seeing her indecision, Barton made a lunge for the weapon only to come up short, as Tony grabbed him by the coat collar and yanked him away from her, and back into the room. Barton tripped and landed hard on the floor, momentarily dazed.

‘Constance, if you don’t mind?’ Tony held out a hand for the gun, and she gingerly handed it to him.

He pointed it at Barton, and confided, ‘I really don’t know much more about weapons than you do, but I should hate to see you kill him, no matter how much he might deserve it. If either of us must shoot, let it be me.’

‘You’re all right,’ she breathed, leaning back to let the wall support her weight.

He reached over and yanked hard on the bell pull to summon the servants, and glanced apologetically at Constance, before focusing again on Barton. ‘I fear, darling, that I cannot keep my presence here a secret. I will need help removing this refuse from your room.

‘You will never believe the night I’ve had. First a greased drainpipe. Then a handful of broken glass. And when at last I get the damn safe open, there is no sign of the plates.’ He shook his finger at Barton.

‘You thought you had me there, I’ll wager. And perhaps, if you were decent to your servants, they’d have bothered to clear the evidence of the true hiding place out of the grate.’ He pulled a burned scrap of paper from his pocket, and held it out for Barton to see. ‘You burned a book, didn’t you? Two, actually. Volumes one and two of A History of British Currency.’

He glanced at Constance again. ‘That is Jack’s idea of wit, darling. Let us be glad you will not have to suffer with it. He ripped the books from their bindings and burned them, then wrapped the plates in the book covers and put them back on the shelves. I have spent countless hours, fiddling with picks to crack that safe, and all for no reason. The plates were in plain sight and I could have left with them at any time.’

There was a sharp knocking at the door and Constance rushed to let the servants enter. Susan entered, in her night clothes, accompanied by…

Constance stared in shock. Tony’s valet, Patrick, hair mussed and in his shirtsleeves, had followed her maid into her bedroom.

Even Tony looked surprised.

Patrick shrugged. ‘I recognised the pull on the bell rope. You ring as if you are trying to yank it off the wall. Most distinctive, sir.’

‘And you happened to be here, by fortunate coincidence?’ Tony enquired.

‘With you spending so many evenings from home, I had little to occupy my time. And it occurred to me that there might be another who would sympathise with my idleness.’

Susan giggled.

Tony struggled to find an appropriate response, before giving up. ‘Well, you will not be idle tonight.’ He pointed to Barton on the floor. ‘Patrick, I wish this removed. From the room, certainly. From the country, if possible. I understand there are often ships in need of crew and none too particular about where the men come from. Use your initiative.’

Patrick looked at Barton, and back to the maid beside him. And he said softly, to Susan, ‘This is the man who hurt you?’

Susan’s eyes grew round, and she nodded her head.

Patrick’s smile was broad and full of menace. Suddenly, he did not look like a humble manservant, but a large, and very threatening, man. He seized Barton from off the floor and punched him once, hard and in the face. ‘No problem, sir.’ He dragged the limp body towards the door.

‘Breakfast will be late tomorrow, Patrick,’ Tony called after him. ‘Do not trouble yourself.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Susan stepped out of the way and closed the door again.

Tony listened to the sound of Patrick and Barton retreating down the hall, before stepping close and seizing her around the waist. Then he spun her around in his arms, kissed her once, full on the mouth, and threw her on to the bed.

He was alive. Young and strong and safe. And she loved the feel of his hands on her, even as her mind struggled to sort out what had just happened. She pulled herself up to lean upon her elbows, trying to regain decorum. ‘Tony, what the devil are you doing?’

He was standing over her with a most curious expression on his face, a mixture of joy and lust. ‘Celebrating. You are safe, and Barton is in the soup. And I have done it, Constance. I have picked the unpickable Bramah lock. What say you to that?’

‘Thank you?’ she said, hesitantly.

‘Actions speak louder than words, Constance.’ And he climbed into bed after her and threw up her skirts.

‘You do not mean…’ She reached to smooth her skirts back down.

‘Oh, yes, I most certainly do.’ He caught her hand, and placed it on the front of his breeches, so she could feel how ready he was. Then he began to undo his buttons.

She had just threatened to shoot a man, after attempting to seduce him, and now, she was going to make passionate love to another. If she looked into the mirror, would she recognise the woman she saw? ‘Do not be ridiculous. I cannot. I am still dressed. The door is not locked. I—’

He pushed her down on to the bed, kissing her in a way that left no doubts as to how much he wanted her, and how soon.

‘Well, at least take off your boots,’ she suggested breathlessly, recognising the old familiar Constance, trying to regain control.

He ignored her.

And the woman that she had become did not care in the slightest. He came into her fast and hard, and she arched as the shock of it ran through every nerve in her body and hummed in her blood. And as he thrust, he told her of things he wanted to do to her, and with her, and for her, each one more scandalous than the last.

And she wanted it all. She wanted his breath on her throat and his voice in her ear, and his body hard inside her for ever. But for now, she wanted him harder and faster, and she told him so over and over again until her breath was a gasp and her voice a sob and her body was trembling with the need for release. And when he demanded it, she came with him, and they collapsed, shaking with weakness, into a tangle on the bed.

He moved against her and she caught her breath in surprise as her body shuddered again, and he rolled away so that he could look into her eyes, reached a hand to her and stroked her to another climax.

And somewhere, deep down, her brain was screaming that this was madness, and it must stop. What had she just promised him? And what could he make her do, when he took her to this state? He knew her body, and he used his knowledge. She was helpless to resist him because it was all too good, and the waves ran through her again as she trembled at his touch.

She looked into his eyes. They were not empty, like Barton’s, but full of shadows. He looked into her soul and he knew her. But who was he?

She sat up and looked around her in confusion. She was lying fully dressed in her bed with a strange man, whose boots were leaving mud on the sheets. And he’d just taken her so violently that her body ached, and then soothed the ache away with his hand.

And he’d done it all because she begged him to.

Now, he was undressing her with exquisite care, undoing her gown and removing her stays, pausing to touch and kiss with featherlightness in ways that he knew pleased her. And now he was taking the pins from her hair and letting it down, combing it out with his fingers.

He knew every inch of her. He knew her life and her finances, and her body, all the intimidate details that she’d never dared share with Robert…

Why had she told him? And why had she not told her husband? Who had she become, now that she’d chosen to fall from virtue with such wanton abandon? Because she certainly was no longer herself.

And who was he? What did she know of him, other than that he was a thief, and that he said she could trust him?

And that he loved another.

He was still fully dressed, and she was naked beside him with her hair free around her shoulders. He was smiling his enigmatic smile as he admired her in her vulnerability.

She pulled the sheet around herself before she let him pull her down beside him and love her again.

He looked at her curiously, waiting for her to speak.

‘It is truly over, then, with Barton?’

‘He would be a fool to remain in the country, even if Patrick allows him to. I will turn the plates over to the Earl of Stanton in the morning, to be destroyed. If Barton reappears, St John will have no trouble hanging him as a traitor. You need never worry about him again.’

He might as well have been speaking nonsense. ‘You spoke of the plates before. What are they? And what does St John Radwell have to do with it all?’

Tony pulled away from her, and puzzled for a moment, before saying, ‘Ah. Yes. I’d meant to tell you about that. Barton was a counterfeiter. Or wished to be. And St John works for the government, and they wanted the plates back, so he hired me to steal them.’

‘So you are not a thief at all.’

‘Well, I am still a thief. A very good one. But currently, I steal when I am ordered to, by a higher authority.’ He grinned. ‘Perhaps I am a humble civil servant. I quite like the idea. It sounds most respectable.’

‘Then why did you not tell me?’

He looked evasive. ‘Frankly, it had not really occurred to me that there would be a difference. Stealing is stealing, and I have not much concerned myself with the reason. St John does not wish me to discuss our association, since the world knows little of what he does, and to reveal my part in it reveals his.’

‘So you are a spy, then.’

He thought about it. ‘I suppose you could say that.’

The truth began to dawn on her. ‘When I found you here, in this room, you were spying on me. And my best friend’s husband sent you. Because he thought I was a traitor. Just like Barton.’

Tony tried to laugh, but it came out sounding small and nervous. ‘I soon set him straight on that. The very first night, I told him you were innocent.’

It was some consolation, she supposed, to know that he thought she was innocent, even though he continued to spy upon her. ‘And this great secret, which you could not share with me to spare my feelings. Is that the only secret? Or are there other things that you have not told me?’

He looked positively uncomfortable, and had trouble meeting her gaze. ‘Well, everyone has secrets, I suppose.’

‘But you have more than most, I think. What is it that you are still not telling me, that makes you so evasive now?’

He attempted to laugh again, and failed completely. ‘You make it sound very ominous. I swear, I was not attempting to hide things from you.’

‘But you have hidden them all the same. I do not like being played for a fool, Tony. Not by my friends, and not by you.’

He flinched at the word ‘friends’ and then looked her squarely in the eyes. ‘I do not think you a fool, nor do I wish to play games with you. But I wish, Constance, that by now you would have looked with your own eyes and known the truth for yourself.’

‘So that you did not have to admit to it? What is it, that is so horrible that you cannot speak it out loud? You had the gall to offer me marriage, and yet you cannot manage to be honest with me.’

‘Perhaps it is because I knew how you would respond, should I tell you the whole truth. It is quite plain, Constance, that whatever you might pretend, on the subject of love you are as cold hearted as any woman in my experience. It was a hundred times easier for me to steal your heart than it would have been to gain it by honest means. If I came to you and presented my case openly, with the rest of your suitors, you would have dismissed me as unworthy of your time and gone after Endsted and his title.’ He was able to laugh again as he mocked her. ‘But it excites you if I approach in darkness and you let me take what I want from you.’

Then he touched her skin, and her body responded with a shudder of passion. ‘You want what I can give you,’ he said, ‘but you wish to be free of me when the sun rises, in case there is a better offer. And I let you use me, because, God help me, I cannot resist you.’

‘I was using you, was I?’ She looked down at her bare body, next to his. ‘When you threw me down and took me, just now? Of course, you did manage to get rid of Barton for me. Although you said before that you did not wish to wait for payment, until after the deed was done, I should think, after tonight, that our accounts must be close to even.’

‘And now you are trying to tell me that you behaved thus just so that I would help you?’ He stared at her in disbelief. She could see the pain in his eyes. ‘Why are you doing this, Constance?’

‘I do what I must to survive, Tony. I did when I married Robert, and I must continue doing so, now he is gone. I am beautiful, or so everyone tells me. If that is all I bring to a marriage, then I must hold out for the best offer. Soon the beauty will fade, and, if I am not careful, I will be left with nothing.’

‘Just as you were when your husband died?’ His smile was sardonic. ‘A pity. For he seemed such a good choice and it all came to naught.’

‘Do not dare to question my marriage, you—’

‘Thief? Criminal? Commoner?’ He got out of the bed and did up his breeches. ‘Guilty on all counts.’ He turned and bowed to her, tugging his forelock. ‘And now you no longer need my services, am I dismissed, your Grace?’

It was over. His business was completed, and he was leaving, unless she could think of a way to stop him. But she was not sure she wanted him to stay, if she could not trust him to tell her the truth. ‘Well, you didn’t think it would last for ever, did you?’ She heard the quaver in her own voice, and wondered if she needed to speak the words to herself.

‘No, actually, I didn’t. In my experience, happiness seldom lasts for long. But I thought when we parted, you would not need to convince yourself that you had been coerced. Do you need me to be the villain of the piece? Does it make you feel better to think you had no choice?’

He stepped closer and she shrank from him, pulling the bedclothes up to cover her nakedness.

‘Let me tell you the way I remember what happened. I came to your bed because you invited me there. You wanted me, your Grace, because you knew what I could do for you, and it had nothing to do with money or deeds. You wanted me to love you as your husband could not.’

Even as he said it, she could feel the need burning inside of her.

‘Now you are going to pretend that while you writhed in ecstasy beneath me, it was because I was forcing you to make a noble sacrifice to preserve your reputation for someone more suitable.’

He reached to his throat and ripped off his cravat and threw it to the floor. Then, he opened his shirt and pointed. ‘See there? These are the marks of your kisses on my throat. Your nails have raked my back and your hands have held me so tight that my arms are bruised. I’ve heard every word you’ve said to me, when we made love. I know what you felt.

‘Perhaps there is already another player waiting in the wings. Someone with a title, or money honestly come by. Someone you can introduce to your friends.’

She watched as he stepped towards the door of her room, preparing to walk out, only to check himself, curse, and turn as usual to leave by the window. ‘He can be the one to ruin your reputation. For I suspect the next man to share this bed will think nothing of arriving at night and leaving by the front door in the morning for all to see.’

He reached into his jacket and dropped a card on the floor. ‘If you need further assistance, go directly to my man of business. There will be funds for you, should you ever need them. What I have is yours to command. You need never speak to me again, so there will be no misunderstanding of my motives. As I told you before, I do not expect payment for acts done in friendship. But do not ever claim again that you need do something against the wishes of your conscience, because of a lack of funds.’

And he walked across the room and stepped out of the window and out of her life.